Comments on: RESTful Live Contacts for Internet-scale social networking

By: webmail

webmail — Mon, 17 Aug 2009 08:30:17 +0000

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By: Mark Baker

Mark Baker — Sat, 30 Jun 2007 20:50:26 +0000

I was hired by Yaron to review Web3S, and one of my first comments to
him was that I thought PUT could be used in place of UPDATE. However
Yaron convinced me that he had requirements which prevented him from
using PUT in that way (his response to me was added to the FAQ).

The more interesting discussion, I think, is whether or not those
requirements should have been there in the first place. Without
redesigning Web3S from scratch under all the same constraints Yaron
had to work within, it’s impossible to say of course. No matter how
you look at it though, I don’t think it’s that big a deal; it’s not
like Web3S is using an alternate version of POST or, worse yet, GET
(hello PROPFIND! 8-).

By: cthrall

cthrall — Wed, 27 Jun 2007 14:44:42 +0000

I just joined Facebook (yeah, I’m behind the times) and was struck by this as well. Jaiku also prompts you for other network credentials (Google, AIM, etc.) to invite friends. Meebo, too.

What’s really missing here is some trusted third-party contact clearinghouse. From my perspective, friend widgets per network miss the bigger picture: seamless presence for all the networks. I now have two accounts on AIM, one on Yahoo! and one on MSN. How to securely manage all those contacts?

Unfortunately, I don’t think “social integrators” like Facebook, Jaiku and Meebo are going to stop doing this kind of authentication any time soon.

By: Mike Schinkel

Mike Schinkel — Wed, 27 Jun 2007 06:01:56 +0000

YarnIntroducing new HTTP verbs violates one of the key principles of REST: the Uniform Interface.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Representational_State_Transfer#Principles

I’ll ask Mark Baker to elaborate…

By: Microsoft Contacts API : Venture Chronicles

Microsoft Contacts API : Venture Chronicles — Wed, 27 Jun 2007 04:07:25 +0000

[...] John Udell weighed in recently offering two very interesting perspectives on the debate. First and foremost he highlighted how the blogosphere is increasingly home to the interplay between people who define these standards, and that’s good. This is a good observation, I can’t think of anything negative about the idea that technical standards are being defined in the clear rather than in closed committees. [...]

By: Yaron Y. Goland

Yaron Y. Goland — Tue, 26 Jun 2007 16:55:43 +0000

In our case the answer was a very clear yes. In order to honors some schemas we needed a way to do an in place update that wasn’t idempotent and that is explicitly illegal for both PUT and POST. We also needed synch capabilities and that also violated PUT and POST. UPDATE solves both problems.

By: Jon Udell

Jon Udell — Mon, 25 Jun 2007 15:22:28 +0000

“Introducing new verbs is fine so long as they provide some axis of functionality not provided by the existing verbs.”

Agreed. I think the question is only one of whether or not the interop cost of introducing an unfamiliar verb is offset by the benefit of being to express something not otherwise easily expressible by the core set. I dunno the answer but it seems like a worthwhile question.

By: Yaron Y. Goland

Yaron Y. Goland — Sun, 24 Jun 2007 16:18:46 +0000

I have to admit that even after reading Roy’s PhD. thesis I’m still not completely sure what REST is but I am fairly sure it doesn’t require just the four standard verbs. Introducing new verbs is fine so long as they provide some axis of functionality not provided by the existing verbs. But you would have to ask Roy or Mark Baker to be sure.

By: links for 2007-06-22

links for 2007-06-22 — Fri, 22 Jun 2007 23:28:29 +0000

[...] RESTful Live Contacts for Internet-scale social networking “the purpose of Web3S is to open up walled-garden social networks” “For one-off exchanges, there’s the contacts control … For longer-term relationships with trusted services, people can grant the permission to read and update Live Contacts” (Jon Udell (tags: jonudell judell live.com interoperability WEB3S api rest socialnetworking socialnetworks addressbook) [...]

By: Dan Keldsen

Dan Keldsen — Fri, 22 Jun 2007 16:41:38 +0000

Jon – the continue lack of security, and your perfect example of what facebook (and LinkedIn, Plaxo, etc.) are doing to subvert security in the name of user friendliness (and self-servingly growing their network of course) is a shame.

As a former security paranoid (mostly recovered, but hey, they really are out to get us!), and also someone fiendishly interested in usability and user experience, it IS possible to be secure AND be usable. It’s just hard to get that across, and make them parallel priorities during development.

And where is FOAF in reputation and as a portable people network format?

Interesting times indeed – lumbering towards the future!